I'm a Digital Graphics Student at Rogue Community College. Recently, I invested in a G4, Mac OS Panther. The computer has done much to bolster and renew confidences in Macintosh computers for me, as I have had next-to-no-problems with it.

However, I want to explore more of the Unix-operative options that Mac has to offer... and I would also like to consider running Linux on the same computer (I don't want to just replace Panther - as the operating system still has a lot to offer as far as I am concerned).

Before I purchased my Mac, I was running RedHat9 on an older, second-hand PC. Unfortunately, the hardware was not up-to-par, and running Windows ME for two years on it had broken it down so much so that it died on me eight months after I partook of the immense pleasure in learning the Linux environment.

Based on minimal experience with RedHat9, is it fair to presume that (with my propensity for learning things very quickly) I would have a fair shot at learning Gentoo?

I know it is possible to run the Gentoo OS on Mac hardware, although I did not find enough research to satisfy my curiosities.

So... based on all of that, what are my options? If anyone out there has any knowledge or useful tips that I can learn from and/or apply, I would appreciate it.

Yes, you're able to install Gentoo on your G4. You can make a dual-boot (Linux & Panther) and you can even run Panther in a Linux session ("Mac on Linux", "mol"). You should be able to boot your Mac into Linux from the new Gentoo Live-CD.

Setting up Gentoo is *at the beginning* harder compared to Redhat or SuSE, but if you read the installation doc *carefully*, you'll reach it. I've worked with SuSE and Debian before I came to Gentoo, because the dependency problems in RPMs and DEBs drove me crazy.

BTW: Mac OS X is based on FreeBSD, so it is a Unix(oid) system. Just open a Terminal session and start exploring